Bitcoin has no physical notes or coins and is a currency used by people online to trade and buy things. It’s favoured by people who prefer to do their business online without being easily traced – you can hold Bitcoin in anonymous accounts without any reference to bank accounts, credit cards and names and addresses in the real world.

Bitcoin

But there are places where the real physical world of hard money can interact with Bitcoin, portals if you like, between the real world of money and the virtual world. And the three in Bristol are not exactly where you would expect to find them.

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And there are four places – bona fide businesses that normally trade in real pound coins and notes that at least say they will accept payment in bitcoin.

Three places you can buy bitcoin:

1 Best Supermarket, Stokes Croft

The convenience store is already fairly legendary in Stokes Croft and Bristol as a whole – it has the breakdancing Jesus on the side of its building, for a start.

Inside the shop is a small grey terminal where people can feed money in and convert it to bitcoin in the virtual world.

Bit coin machine at The best Supermarket on stokes croft (Image: Jon Kent)

Owner Majid Khan said the machine was installed a year ago, and is good for business – not least because of the 6.2 per cent commission.

“It’s crazy, people come in here all the time,” he told Rebecca Ratcliffe, from The Guardian, recently. “We get all sorts, they travel from all over, from Bath, Bristol.”

“It’s underground, illegal stuff,” he says with a grin. “I ask people what they are going to do with it and they just shrug and say, you know… They like the fact that it’s anonymous, that it’s not controlled by the government. One day a guy came in and I saw him put £2,000 cash into the machine.”

2 Fades barbers in Filton

The barbershop in Filton Road had its machine installed a couple of months ago. One owner said it was ‘mostly guys in suits’ coming in to buy bitcoin as an investment. Unlike the Best Supermarket, Fades’ machine allows people to buy and sell bitcoin.

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According to the latest going rate of exchange, the Fades machine is selling bitcoin at £2,172.18 for one bitcoin and buying them back for £1,870.70.

Bit coin machine at The best Supermarket on stokes croft (Image: Jon kent)

3 McColls, Bishport Avenue, Hartcliffe

According to the internet’s guides to buying Bitcoin, there is a third portal into the virtual world of online currency in Bristol – in Hartcliffe.

The otherwise unassuming McColls convenience store has, according to many a Google search, a Cardtronic ATM inside that people can put money into and buy bitcoins.

“I’ve got no idea, I’m afraid,” said a member of staff when the Post inquired. “We have got a cash machine in the shop, yes, but I’ve never used it. It charges you. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone put money into it.”